Corn is more of a summer thing, but the recipe for 3-14: Creamy Corn Chowder calls for fresh, canned, or frozen corn, so you can have it anytime you have a hankering for corn chowder. I’m not personally a huge fan of corn chowders, but I know a lot of people are, and my in-house reviewer claimed to like it, so it comes recommended.

I’ve made a variation on Tyler Florence’s corn chowder at my current job, which was also a hit. Both call for thyme, but Simply Delicious chooses to bulk with mirepoix vegetables & milk rather than potatoes, roux, & heavy cream like Tyler Florence. Another example of the lean/health-conscious 80s.

I don’t think we were much of a corn chowder (or any chowder) family growing up, so I think this one’s untested.

Ingredients. Since it’s January, we’re going with frozen corn, but canned or fresh can be used too, depending on what you’ve got. I had more corn than what they called for, so I upped the amount of mirepoix I used as well.

Melting butter.

Grated my carrot in the food processor because I’m lazy and that’s what food processors are for.

This seems like it’s going to be a very chunky chowder–there’s no instructions on puréeing the soup itself and theirs looks pretty unblended. Even though I’m probably not eating much of this, I still not okay with it being that chunky.

Here’s the only bit they advise you to purée–the frozen corn. Get ready for an ear-splitting racket.

After processing. This makes up the bulk of the soup, but I think you miss out by having chunks of everything else but not of the corn.

Into the pot with the other veggies.

This just does not look appetizing. We’re going to have to make a few adjustments.

Here’s my proposed adjustments: blend the soup to make everything consistent, and add in some extra whole corn (I saved some to the side, thinking this might happen) to give SOME texture now that the mirepoix is no longer chunky. I think it can still be called a corn chowder–we sold one in the restaurant one week I was there that was essentially what I’ve made/suggested.

I think that looks MUCH better and much more appetizing. Threw it back on the stove after blending for a few minutes to heat/simmer/even out the flavors.

Final product, with my adjustments & their suggested garnish (some of the grated carrot from the beginning that I saved). I put the rest into lunch portions–it reheats well. Not bad–it gets the job done, and I liked it a lot better blended.